Thoughts on progress

Well today was the end to another hectic week. Welcome to the weekend!
So I picked up some books today on eating gluten-free. I am willing to give it a try. Hoping this will help me with my skin, my mood and my energy levels.
So tomorrow we will be having a long swim training session. On Sunday we are supposed to be biking, but I am thinking about entering the Singer Island Sprint Tri. I am leaning towards doing the race, it will be less of a beating than our bike training, LOL.

T-minus 29 days to race day. Guess I should get busy booking our flights! Grant & Mac will be tagging along and we will probably spend a few extra days to check out the sites.

Overall training is going good. When I get frustrated, I just look back to last year when I started on this journey and realize how far I have come. Jan of 2007 I got my first road bike and starting training for a century ride. I remember how unstable I felt on that thing and having cars whiz by my tail.

In Sept of 2007 I started to incorporate running, my least favorite activity in the whole world, right next to listening to country music :) When I started jogging, I could hardly go for a minute and my pace was around a 20 min/mi. I remember my big goal was to be able to jog non-stop to the end of my street! I managed to eek thru the Disney 1/2 Marathon in Jan of 2008 at a average pace around 17:00 min/mi. Here we are in July and I am getting around 14:00 min/mi, unless its been a brick run and then I'm closer to 16:00 min/mi.

As a kid growing up in south Florida, swimming was a natural progression. I was on a swim team when I was little and I am a certified open water diver. I "thought" my swimming fitness was okay until the day I went to the pool to start some swim training in Feb of 2008. I could hardly swim 2 lengths of the pool without being winded! How the heck was I gonna do a 1/4 mi in the ocean. Oh yeah, the current. That's what I kept telling myself. As our swim training progressed, I was able to start builiding my swim stamina and I also learned to swim efficiently. Now I can swim seemingly endless laps at a comfortable pace and with a low heart rate. Gotta keep your head down, roll your body, stretch that stroke & feel the water! I'm an experienced swimmer and it took me a while to absorb this stuff, but its finally sinking in.

So next month I have the Loggerhead Sprint Tri and the Chicago Olympic Tri (my big event ). I am really enjoying this new sport and I am such a gear head, I love my gadgets. To those just starting out, be patient. Build your base, view your race as an experience. Me I just embrace being last in my age group :) I seem to do well on the swim & bike, but my run, well it needs some work.